It's hard to think of a stranger animal than Valve's new Orange Box. Since the launch of GameSpy.com, we've never had a case where a bundle has included three brand-new games, available only as a package deal in stores but separately online. But that's exactly the case with The Orange Box, comprised of Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal, as well as the previously released Half-Life 2 and Episode One. To commemorate the occasion, we've done separate reviews for all the new titles -- which are uniformly stellar -- leading to one conclusion: for $50, The Orange Box is one of the best gaming deals in years.

Oddly enough, the "weakest" new component of The Orange Box, relatively speaking, may be its most prominent. Half-Life 2: Episode Two (4/5 stars) is filled with all the great gameplay of its predecessors, including large-scale battles with the Combine and lots of puzzles involving the gravity gun. Clocking in at around five hours, the adventure continues the story of Gordon Freeman, once again teamed with sidekick Alyx Vance, as they attempt to deliver a packet of Combine data to the human resistance outside City 17. It's basically one big set piece after another, glued together with lots of scripted sequences and exposition to keep the story moving along. Or in other words, it's more Half-Life 2, with only a few inconsistent moments keeping it from reaching the heights of the games that came before it.

There are no such reservations in place about Team Fortress 2 (5/5 stars), the long-awaited resurrection of the classic Quake and Half-Life mod. With nine distinct classes, six tight maps covering a variety of gameplay types, and a sleek cartoonish art style, TF2's action never stops. In many ways, it's the anti-Battlefield, a throwback to the games of ten years ago, ditching huge maps and vehicles in favor of classic gameplay embellished with the physics of the Source engine, stat tracking, and a ton of other little touches that make it a contender for our multiplayer game of the year.